The edition that we have chosen to display is that printed by Horace Cardon in Lyon in 1604. The edition is based on that of Denis Godefroy, first published in 1588, and contains, in addition to the normal gloss with the later additions, a number of updatings and commentaries by humanist jurists. This is obviously not the first printed edition of the Corpus; indeed, it is one of the last. Choosing one of the incunablula editions would allow us to get closer to the Vulgate text as it was known in the Middle Ages. Three reasons suggested using an edition like this one. First, it allows one to see what the humanists did with the medieval text, which, however, they largely preserved. Second, it is printed in an italic type, allowing one to hope that optical character reading of the text may eventually prove to be possible. Third, at least one of the incunabula editions is already available in a reprint.

Further information about this edition is contained in the metadata for each volume. That on the last volume, the Supplementum, is partcularly relevant to this edition.